The directorial debut of Greta Gerwig, Lady Bird paints a coming-of-age story in an early 2000s Sacramento. Focusing on the titular Lady Bird (Saoirse Ronan) as she and her best friend Julie (Beanie Feldstein) travel through their adolescence and discover themselves, on the verge of their impending graduation. While their story is quaint, it lacks substance and ends feeling empty. This slice-of-life film relies on its character's lives being interesting, but the characters end up feeling quite boring and unremarkable. While the cast delivers enjoyable performances, they aren't given much to do and fail to come together memorably. Though there are parts that I connect to, I feel the familial relationship issues and coming-of-age stories have been done better in other films. Lady Bird fails to contribute anything too meaningful for its characters and produces a film with little substance outside of its colorful cast.
